Johnny asked Staff ago Hello!
I wanted to recommend a topic for you to write about, the methods of Talmudic sophistry in the Middle Ages (particularly the post- Tosaphists sophistry, like the Regensburg sophistry, etc.).
Since some of the Rishonim started with the mistaken theological idea that there was nothing hidden from the eyes of Chazal, and based on the mistaken historical assumption that the Gemara was written by a single editor (Rav Ashi), the mistaken literary assumption that Rav Ashi edited the Gemara as a perfect piece of work, free of contradictions, extraneous material, errors in logic, that the “questioner” and “answerer” from gemaras were real people who had methods of their own throughout the Shas, and that every sentence in the Gemara is correct in and of itself (even if it is later rejected by the Gemara). And the mistaken logical assumption that something may be incorrect because it contradicts one specific thing, though it contradicts nothing else – because of these assumptions we find questions like:
“How can one opinion be given, when in another place it is written…” (the Tosaphists)
“If the answerer gave a specific answer to the questioner’s question, how could the questioner have even asked the question? Didn’t he know the answer?” (Maharam Shif and others like him)
“How does the questioner ask this here and that there?” (Sephardic sophistry – the Rashba, etc.)
Even in Chazal’s words we find questions like “It is a rational inference, why do I need the Scriptures?” which presume the Torah to be the opposite of rational inference.
All this led the study of Torah, the quest for truth, to become a sport which drew no conclusions. (See “Man of Halacha” by Rabbi Soloveichik.)
There are well-known stories of Torah greats who, when questioned because they had contradicted things they had said earlier, said, “When did I say that? Last week? What’s past is past—forget it!”
And there is the famous saying, “One does not question the exegete.”
In light of all this, Bialik’s words (in “The Matmid”) become clear: “And all these forces, upon what do they exhaust themselves?”
That’s a topic for you to discuss!
Sincerely yours,
Johnny Walker
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Dear Weker,
Your words are enlightening and should be written and spoken, and we would be very pleased if you would develop your idea and write an essay on this topic, as it is said, “let the reader of the letter be the messenger.” We would be happy to upload it to our site.
So that our answer is not merely a suggestion to you, we will bring an example of the type of nonsense sophistry indulged in by the Tosaphists:
The Talmud (Bava Batra 16b) writes: “R. Simeon the son of Yohai said: Abraham had a precious stone hung round his neck which brought immediate healing to any sick person who looked on it, and when Abraham our father departed from this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, suspended it from the orb of the sun.”
The sages of Ashkenaz (the Tosaphists), who even treated the words of aggadah in the Talmud as actual, factual truth, ask: “But there was no illness in the time of Abraham, as is written in Bava Metzia 87a, ‘Until Jacob there was no illness’.”
The Tosaphists came up with two answers to their ridiculous question, using a method known as “division” (creating a distinction between two cases which seem to be contradictory):
1. Until the era of Jacob there was no internal illness without external cause, but there was illness caused by injury.
2. Until the era of Jacob there was no illness which led to death, but there were non-fatal illnesses.
In these two cases of illness Abraham would use the precious stone to heal the sick (be it from injury or a non-fatal illness).
To enlarge and glorify this nonsense sophistry, the Maharsha asks, in his novella on the Tosaphot, “Why did Abraham our father, ill after his own circumcision, not use the precious stone to heal himself?”
He answers that illness after a circumsion is not considered an illness from an injury but rather an illness caused by the Heavens. (The Maharsha rejects this way of settling the contradicion and offers another: Abraham, in his righteousness, did not want to make use of the stone and cast his hopes upon the Lord.)
Thus do the sages of Ashkenaz, and in their wake the yeshiva world, search and seek, discuss, question, contradict, build, destroy, query, exhaust, fill, tire, and destroy the intellectual capabilities of the religious so that they will not leave this nonsense and say “Shall we go and learn what wisdom is?”.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Dear Johnny,
Your words are enlightening and should be written and spoken, and we would be very pleased if you would develop your idea and write an essay on this topic, as it is said, “let the reader of the letter be the messenger.” We would be happy to upload it to our site.
So that our answer is not merely a suggestion to you, we will bring an example of the type of nonsense sophistry indulged in by the Tosaphists:
The Talmud (Bava Batra 16b) writes: “R. Simeon the son of Yohai said: Abraham had a precious stone hung round his neck which brought immediate healing to any sick person who looked on it, and when Abraham our father departed from this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, suspended it from the orb of the sun.”
The sages of Ashkenaz (the Tosaphists), who even treated the words of aggadah in the Talmud as actual, factual truth, ask: “But there was no illness in the time of Abraham, as is written in Bava Metzia 87a, ‘Until Jacob there was no illness’.”
The Tosaphists came up with two answers to their ridiculous question, using a method known as “division” (creating a distinction between two cases which seem to be contradictory):
1. Until the era of Jacob there was no internal illness without external cause, but there was illness caused by injury.
2. Until the era of Jacob there was no illness which led to death, but there were non-fatal illnesses.
In these two cases of illness Abraham would use the precious stone to heal the sick (be it from injury or a non-fatal illness).
To enlarge and glorify this nonsense sophistry, the Maharsha asks, in his novella on the Tosaphot, “Why did Abraham our father, ill after his own circumcision, not use the precious stone to heal himself?”
He answers that illness after a circumsion is not considered an illness from an injury but rather an illness caused by the Heavens. (The Maharsha rejects this way of settling the contradicion and offers another: Abraham, in his righteousness, did not want to make use of the stone and cast his hopes upon the Lord.)
Thus do the sages of Ashkenaz, and in their wake the yeshiva world, search and seek, discuss, question, contradict, build, destroy, query, exhaust, fill, tire, and destroy the intellectual capabilities of the religious so that they will not leave this nonsense and say “Shall we go and learn what wisdom is?”.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet